


Burning, No Direction

by notunbroken



Category: Major Crimes (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 08:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18752602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notunbroken/pseuds/notunbroken
Summary: Jack accepts the hardest truth where Sharon is concerned.





	Burning, No Direction

The call was an ambush.

The lack of respect in it left Jack staggering through the following day. His impairment was purely metaphorical, thanks to his so-called sponsor’s disarming skills. But still. He was blindsided. Stupefied. Stunned.

And worse, he’d only just hung up when the fax came through. He stuffed the pitifully short stack of papers into his briefcase without reading them. Such a small bit of ink, with the power to rewrite his history.

After several meetings where his attention drifts over the inequity of it all, he decides to take his complaints to their ultimate source.

With the handy excuse of a client in custody, he camps in the glass-walled breakroom of the 9th floor at the PAB. Corner table, leaving the barest view of the hall beyond, he splits his focus with ticking off the Major Crimes detectives as they leave for the day. Sanchez sending rapid-fire Spanish into his phone. Tao with his nose in a book. Sykes hoisting a duffle bag on her shoulder. Some tall kid talking up an uninterested blonde. Provenza wearing his perma-glower, ranting to that Buzz guy — whatever his job is — all the way to the elevators.

Five — well, six, he supposes — little piggies down, one to go. And, of course, it’s too much to hope that the holdout would get the hell out of the way, just this one time.

Jack doesn’t rush in packing up. When the hallway remains empty, he routes the long way into the squad’s area, settles near the bare cubicle where Rusty used to hole up. The object of his annoyance is right where he’d expect, slouching in a chair across from where Sharon leans onto her desk, chin in hand. Smiles all around.

The sight grips at Jack’s stomach. In what world would he do Flynn a favor? Especially a favor that asks him to grovel for the privilege of spilling white-out across his life? Jack could just grab a handful of his stupid, gelled-up hair and…

A passing uniform strikes that thought. He’s in the middle of LAPD headquarters, after all. If he so much as bumped into Flynn, his ex would have him locked in Men’s Central, sans bail, faster than he could say “boo.”

“Andy...” Carrying from the office, Sharon’s laugh is soft, slow. Jack pinpoints it in his memory, on a pillow, under cheap, scratchy sheets. Back when they were all potential and no complication, as a couple. “I promise you,” she tells Flynn, “I don’t care. Just get me something involving vegetables.”

Sharon always has been one of the _best_ people Jack knows, in terms of morality. It’s neither a pro nor a con, as a personality trait. It just _is_. She is black-or-white, yes-or-no, all about the dotted Is and crossed Ts. He understands this all too well. So it was beyond his belief to hear she’s planning to marry her alcoholic, hostile, legendary asshole of a subordinate.

Sure, they’ve been dating for a while now, from what Emily’s told him. Living together with her precious, divorce-bought son in her tiny condo, even. But he figured it was a phase, a pairing kicked off thanks to proximity and upheaval and loneliness. But…

“ _What?”_

Jack starts at the question, delivered like a thrown knife. While he wandered the swamp of his thoughts, Sharon had appeared out of her office, alone. Now she’s in a cross-armed stance before him, pinning his back to the wall with a narrow stare.

It’s amazing how quickly the sight of him can flip her attitude. Could it really be so long ago that it was Jack who left her laughing freely, wearing a smile that lit her face? On an impulse, he grasps for the former, searching for any of the old signs.

“Sharon,” he pauses to force a chuckle, “I thought a perk of being the brass was coming in last and leaving first, not the other way around.”

Her lips don’t as much as twitch. “You do understand I sent Andy to pick up dinner because I noticed you lurking out here?”

“W-well, _yes_. Obviously.” His throat tightens at what has become her unflinching response to his charms. “I was _joking_.”

“Obviously,” she parrots, before lifting a brow. “ _Why_ are you _here_ , Jack?”

That tone. So full of disdain, as if he was a wad of gum on the sidewalk, or one of the murderers who parade through her interrogation room. He straightens his spine and grits, “Is it true?”

Her eyes lift to the ceiling. As she unfolds her arms and repositions her palms on her hips, he examines her left hand. A flare of relief shoots through him. _No ring_.

And Sharon isn’t the type to accept shortcuts, no sir. She’s traditional. She demands the best. There’s no way she’d get married again, let alone to someone like Flynn.

Somehow, her stare grows darker as she clasps her hands behind her back. “Emily called you, I take it.”

“Ah, yes. Yes she did. _But,_ ” Jack nods toward her now-hidden fingers, “it looks like maybe she was mistaken.” He can’t hold a smirk out of the observation.

Sharon’s voice goes rocklike. “She wasn’t.” The words are unyielding as they hit him, square between the eyes.

He swallows at the burn traveling up his throat. “You can’t be—”

“Jack,” she snaps, cutting off his impending rant. Without waiting for his buy-in, she clicks down the hall. “Let’s talk in my office.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Something about her wanting to shuffle the conversation behind closed doors leaves his mood lifting as he trails along. “Why so secretive?”

Sharon pauses at the door, keeping silent until he’s inside and they’re sealed off from the bullpen. Her voice is all business when she repeats, “Why are you here?”

This time, his chuckle is genuine. He waggles a point at her. “You keep changing the topic on me.”

“Why couldn’t you just take Emily’s word for it, that Andy and I are engaged? You had to come here in person?”

He did. He had to see it for himself, that she’d cut their ties for good. The first woman — well, girl, in the beginning — that he loved. Maybe the only one, if he was honest. And now? She’s settling for... _this_?

“What, he didn’t even buy you a ring?”

“He gave me a beautiful ring. But we haven’t told the squad, yet.”

“And why is that?”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “None of your business, frankly.”

“So that’s it, then?”

“That’s _it_?” Her eyes widen. “Between us, you mean?” A disbelieving chuff of laughter flows from her mouth. “You didn’t understand the situation before now?”

“Well…”

“The divorce wasn’t a clue? The separation?” Her cheeks go pink. “How about the hundred times you ignored my calls, asking you to come home?”

“I didn’t mean between us! Not necessarily, anyway.” He nods toward the room’s second door. “I meant that you’ve agreed to marrying—”

“Jack.” Sharon’s voice glints in a knife blade of a warning. “I want you to think carefully about what you’re about to say.”

He’s lost the thread, the reason he came here. What he’d feared is true, but he can’t just _walk away_. “Take a step back and look at it. We were married for almost 30 years. You’re going to wipe all that out now?”

“Wipe it—” She bites off the rest of her point, shakes her head. “What are you talking about?”

“Our esteemed children called me up, threatened to dump me for good if I don’t agree to annul our marriage.” As her eyes flit along the opposite wall, connecting invisible dots, he can’t resist adding, “I bet you’d like that.”

Sharon’s stare burns when it drops to his. “For your information, Jack, I only told them that Andy asked me to marry him, and that I said yes.”

“But it’s what you want.”

“I’ve always wanted them to have a relationship with you—”

“The annulment, Sharon.”

Her sharp swallow answers him, even before she says, “Ideally, yes. Andy is Catholic, with annulments we could marry in the Church.” She lowers her chin. “Which I would like to do.”

“I don’t believe...” Jack trails off, pushing his hands through his hair.

Her eyes narrow. “Why would that even bother you?”

“It’s our marriage. You’re okay with just pretending it never happened?”

Again, she looks at him as if he’s doing a perp walk. “It didn’t seem to be all that important to you when we were actually _supposed to be together_.”

“Says who?”

“You. Left!” She jabs a hand in his direction with each word. “You dropped off the face of the earth! For what?” He doesn’t have an answer for that, but Sharon does. Her lip curls. “For _cards_. For the big jackpot. For all the good times and none of the worries.”

“That wasn’t...” After all these years, Jack can’t believe she wants an explanation _now_. It catches him flat-footed. “That’s not fair.”

Her voice thickens. “ _You_ made me feel like someone worth leaving, and deep down I believed it. Do you understand?” She pauses for an answer he has no intention of giving, then lands the KO blow on a near-whisper. “I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that.”

The quick response Jack needs is nowhere to be found. Never has she said this. She’s never mentioned anything like it. If it was true, if she wasn’t actively looking for reasons to hate him, to forget what they had, she would’ve said it before.

In his silence, Sharon clears her throat, folds her arms across her chest. Her voice almost finds its normal, no-nonsense tone. “So yes, I’m fine with—” She pauses, waits for him to meet her stare, “I _want_ to annul our marriage, Jack.”

His cheeks burn with a molten mix of shame and anger. He resorts to a tried-and-true defense. “Sure, sure. You want me to go to the Church, tell them it’s all _my_ fault. That’s what it always comes down to, in the end.”

Sharon blinks toward the overhead lights. Her lips roll together, press into a frown. “It doesn’t matter. Annulment or not, I’m not your wife anymore.” The waver in her speech is as subtle as the water gathered in her eyes. “You’re free of me, just like you always wanted.” She directs a firm nod to the door. “So go.”

The last word is something he’s rarely let her have, but her turned back leaves him speechless. She pulls a bag from the shelf behind her desk, lifts her coat from the chair. The message is plate-glass clear: she’s leaving, and he isn’t free to follow.

A frustrated glut of words lodge in Jack’s throat. As usual, Sharon’s cool detachment unsettles him more than anything she could say. He throws the door open, stalks out. As if on autopilot, his hand digs into his briefcase, reaching for the papers he has every intention of turning into confetti on the floor. But the tinny melody of a ringtone leaves him pausing.

Back in the office, Sharon wipes at her eyes before lifting the phone to her ear. “Yes, darling, I’m on my way down.” In a flash, her lips split into a smile as she bends to scoop a folder into her bag. “God _forbid_.”

Jack knows enough to recognize the ripping sensation in his chest. It’s the separation of his memory from reality, a gulf that’s opened again and again since he came back to LA.

When he went off to chase greener pastures, life at home paused in his mind. But the truth is it went racing on without him. His kids grew up and away from him, his career withered, his family withdrew. Now, he sees, his wife released him into the wind, understanding it would carry him beyond her reach.

All of that for empty pockets and sand-blown desert, the win that never came.

Sharon’s laugh parts his thoughts. “Well, you can tell the Sergeant I’ll be down in two minutes.” Jack dips around the corner when she stops to lock her door on the way out. “If he’s still there when I show up, I’ll be happy to tell him, in person, that I’m fine with you parking in my spot.”

Her steps click across the bullpen, out into the main hall, with her voice trailing into lightened, echoing nothingness as she goes. Maybe she’ll stay on the phone with Flynn until she climbs into his car, a bit of any-separation-is-too-much, no-you-hang-up nonsense for which Jack thought she long ago lost capacity. Serious, responsible Sharon, reverting to going-steady antics. He hadn’t seen it coming.

Then again, she’s been surprising him ever since he dropped back into his life.

_Racking up homicide convictions, for example._

_Adopting a kid, for example._

_Falling in goopy, ludicrous love with someone else, for example._

That last one is all too clear, now. He looks to the papers gripped in his hand.

_Wanting an annulment, for example._

Maybe he stopped seeing, really understanding, Sharon a long time ago.

Maybe it’s time to surprise her, in return.

———

_[Panic in the taste of all that could have been](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxgQDXMN1Fw) _   
_Even what I thought wasn’t worth giving_   
_At least my mind has changed_

_Oh, I’ve been a forest burning no direction_  
_I tried to hold you, I tried everything but running_  
 _My heart is panicking are you kissing him?_  
 _Are you reaching through all your days with him?_  
 _Your blackened branches drifting through my water_  
_Are you over me? Are you? Are? You are_

 _I will not hold you. I will not feel your sway_  
_I will not miss you. I will not think each day_  
 _Of summer twilight, your eyes rushing through me deep_  
 _I saw my own waters rushing right back to me_


End file.
